Typical means of providing human interaction with computer software include keyboards, pointing devices such as the ubiquitous mouse, voice recognition, and now video input. Computer vision systems now allow for human interaction with software applications. One example of such a system is a game that allows a user to manipulate a handheld object. A camera on the system records the users movements and software in the game system tracks the movement of the handheld object. The movement of the object is then transferred to figures in the game thereby allowing the user to manipulate objects or characters within the virtual space of the game.
Cameras used for such systems typically are of the variety commonly available for use with personal computers. Such cameras are well known and used for applications such as video chat. These cameras are relatively inexpensive and reliable. However, their picture quality is relatively low and typically, camera settings such as brightness and hue cannot be adjusted externally by the user.
For such cameras, settings such as brightness, white balance, hue, and saturation are set by the manufacturer and are chosen to maximize fidelity in image reproduction for consumption by the human eye. Unfortunately, such settings are not always ideal for a system that is designed to track objects within the image. Therefore, an image produced by such a camera may or may not be suitable for use with an object tracking system.